Love,
Jess
December 31, 2014
"Auld Lang Syne"
In his autobiography, Chaplin wrote that certain songs created the mood for his films. For The Immigrant it was an old song called “Mrs. Grundy," for Twenty Minutes Of Love, a popular two-step called "Two Much Mustard," Jose Padilla's "La Violatera" set the mood for City Lights, and lastly, for The Gold Rush, the mood was created with "Auld Lang Syne," which Charlie hears the revelers singing during this poignant scene in the film.
New Year's Eve, 1948
December 30, 2014
A gathering at the Mocambo club following the premiere of The Pride Of The Yankees, 1942
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| L-R: Tim Durant, Luise Rainer, CC, Charlie, Jr |
December 29, 2014
RIP Lita Grey Chaplin (December 29, 1995)
Lita died of cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House. She was 87 & the last surviving wife of Chaplin.
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| Lita in New York City following her divorce from Chaplin, September 1927 |
December 26, 2014
Charlie was impulsive, dominating, good-natured, & affectionate, at least according to his face
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| Picture Show, January 10, 1920 (Click to enlarge) |
Fun with keywords
But the most soul-stabbing queries of all are the ones regarding those asinine non-Chaplin quotes that have been floating around on the internet for lo these many years. I'm fairly certain that every time someone posts one of these quotes on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and attributes them to Chaplin, a kitten dies. The only bright spot is that when someone is brought to my site via queries such as
Nevertheless no matter how people get to my site, I'm always grateful, especially to the ones who hang around & keep reading. I'll close with some of the queries, and there were many, that either gave me a giggle or left me scratching my head:
December 25, 2014
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (April 16, 1889 - December 25, 1977)
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| Portrait by James Abbe, 1922 |
"Charlie Chaplin, the deathly shy, undersized, lower-class boy, born into a society that seemed to despise these things, dreamed he would overcome his handicaps, even preposterously dreamed he would go out and conquer the world. Put quite simply, he did. Jimmy the Fearless made his dreams his life." --John McCabe, Charlie Chaplin, 1978
December 24, 2014
"A Christmas Carol" by Charlie Chaplin
Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1916:
Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1916:
Do you know what I envy around Christmas time? Well, it's the old chap with the long white whiskers. I'd like to be Santa Claus for thirty days once every twelve months. Children are fond of me, but they love Santa Claus with undying affection.
Every time Christmas comes around and I find myself in this land of sunshine and flowers, instead of knee-deep in snow, I have repinings. I remember Christmas in London in the old days when it was hard scratching for me to get sixpence so that I might see the Christmas pantomime spectacle at Drury Lane, "Jack & the Beanstalk," "Puss In Boots," or "Cinderella."
Some day, when I get rich enough, I'm going to visit my old home in England made up as Santa Claus with all sorts of presents for all sorts of children, and I'm going to have the waifs follow me round in the snow, singing outside poor people's windows:
"Good Christians all rejoi--oi-oice,
With heart and soul and voi-oi-oice."
And then somebody'll hand me out a mug of mulled ale and I'll hand in my presents for the kiddies, taken out of an automobile truck, because no reindeer team could haul what I want to take along.
Say! I'd like a slab of roast beef, that's been cooked on a spit, and a big helping of old-fashioned plum pudding for my Christmas dinner. Instead of that I'll get some kind a ragout and grapefruit salad. Hey!....Camera!
December 23, 2014
December 22, 2014
Christmas card, 1942
The proceeds of these second front cards went to the Russian-American Society for Medical Aid To Russia.
chaplin.bfi.org.uk
December 21, 2014
The Chaplins, Christmas 1952
Charlie and his family spent the holidays that year at the Beau Rivage Hotel in Lausanne. They had just moved there from the Savoy Hotel in London where they had been living since Chaplin was refused reentry to the U.S. in September. In January 1953, he will purchase the Manoir de Ban in Corsier-Sur-Vevey. His final home.
At this time, the Chaplins had four children: Geraldine, Michael, Josephine, and Victoria. Oona is probably pregnant here with Eugene who will be born in August 1953.
At this time, the Chaplins had four children: Geraldine, Michael, Josephine, and Victoria. Oona is probably pregnant here with Eugene who will be born in August 1953.
December 20, 2014
Chaplin, a filmmaker with courage
With all the hubbub surrounding the recent decision by Sony Pictures to pull the premier of The Interview, a film satirizing North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, due to threats by anonymous hackers, let's recall a time when Hollywood still had (I'm sorry to say it) balls.
During the filming of The Great Dictator, Chaplin's 1940 satire of Adolph Hitler, he received death threats and crank letters: "Some threatened to throw stink bombs in the theatre and shoot up the screen where ever it would be shown. Others threatened to create riots."1 But Chaplin never once considered canceling the film. He believed his film had a message and that his voice should be heard. As a comedian, Chaplin believed his only weapon against evil was humor. "I'm the clown," Chaplin told the New York Times in 1940, "and what can I do that is more effective than to laugh at these fellows who are putting humanity to the goose-step; who, as I say in one of my first captions, are kicking humanity around?....If there is one thing I know it is that power can always be made ridiculous. The bigger that fellow gets the harder my laughter will hit him." 2
Author & theater owner George R.R. Martin summed up the canceling of The Interview nicely in a recent blog post:
"The level of corporate cowardice here astonishes me. It's a good thing these guys weren't around when Charlie Chaplin made The Great Dictator. If Kim Jong-Un scares them, Adolf Hitler would have had them shitting in their smallclothes."
Touché
1Chaplin, My Autobiography, 1964
2Robert Van Gelder, "Chaplin Draws A Keen Weapon," New York Times, September 8, 1940
During the filming of The Great Dictator, Chaplin's 1940 satire of Adolph Hitler, he received death threats and crank letters: "Some threatened to throw stink bombs in the theatre and shoot up the screen where ever it would be shown. Others threatened to create riots."1 But Chaplin never once considered canceling the film. He believed his film had a message and that his voice should be heard. As a comedian, Chaplin believed his only weapon against evil was humor. "I'm the clown," Chaplin told the New York Times in 1940, "and what can I do that is more effective than to laugh at these fellows who are putting humanity to the goose-step; who, as I say in one of my first captions, are kicking humanity around?....If there is one thing I know it is that power can always be made ridiculous. The bigger that fellow gets the harder my laughter will hit him." 2
Author & theater owner George R.R. Martin summed up the canceling of The Interview nicely in a recent blog post:
"The level of corporate cowardice here astonishes me. It's a good thing these guys weren't around when Charlie Chaplin made The Great Dictator. If Kim Jong-Un scares them, Adolf Hitler would have had them shitting in their smallclothes."
Touché
1Chaplin, My Autobiography, 1964
2Robert Van Gelder, "Chaplin Draws A Keen Weapon," New York Times, September 8, 1940
December 19, 2014
December 17, 2014
Paulette "a very smart girl," says John Barrymore
The Great Profile (or "pro-feel" as Barrymore called it) describes a night of charades at Chaplin's house where Paulette outsmarted both him and Charlie.
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| "13 Fascinating Women," by John Barrymore, Look, Nov. 5, 1940 Read the rest of the article here. |
December 16, 2014
Christmas with Charlie (and Jackie)
Another installment in my annual "Christmas With Charlie" series.
From the Los Angeles Times, November 16, 1920:
1Besides The Kid (1921), Jackie also appeared in A Day's Pleasure (1919) & Nice And Friendly (1921), a film Chaplin made as a wedding present for Lord & Lady Mountbatten.
2Jackie's father, who was driving, was also injured. 15 years later, father and son would be involved in another car accident. This time, Jackie's father would be killed.
From the Los Angeles Times, November 16, 1920:
Charlie Chaplin emerged from seclusion yesterday to announce that he will be in Los Angeles to celebrate the Christmas holidays. The announcement came in a telegram sent by him from New York to Jackie Coogan, child screen actor who has played in many of the film comedian's pictures.1 The boy recently suffered a basal fracture of the skull in an automobile accident.2
Chaplin, for several weeks, while his wife's divorce suit was pending, had been in hiding from the general public and none of his plans were divulged until his telegram was received yesterday. The message stated:
"Dear Jackie: I know you are recovering nicely because you are such a strong little man who can take a punch. Hope yourself and daddy will be out when I return so that we can spend Christmas together, or at least you will be well enough to play with toys, so don't disappoint Santa Claus, as there are no chimneys in hospitals for him to come down through. You wait and see what I'll bring from New York. If you want anything ask my manager, Mr. Reeves, and he will get it for you. [Signed] Charlie Chaplin."
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| Coogan and Chaplin on the set of The Kid |
_________________________________________________________________________________
2Jackie's father, who was driving, was also injured. 15 years later, father and son would be involved in another car accident. This time, Jackie's father would be killed.
December 15, 2014
Color photo, October 1940
Photo by the Daily News Color Studio, New York
Because I know you're looking for his blue eyes:
December 14, 2014
Charlie & Oona at a Hollywood preview of THE MEN starring Marlon Brando & Teresa Wright, 1950
According to the caption, the Chaplins entered the theater through a side street door in order to avoid the fanfare at the main entrance.
December 12, 2014
Chaplin & Paulette Goddard, c.1939
Given the date, the sad look on Charlie's face, and Paulette's black veil and dress, this photo may have been taken at Douglas Fairbanks' funeral in December 1939. Chaplin's hair is dyed for the filming The Great Dictator which he began shooting in September.
December 10, 2014
Jackie Coogan and Granville Redmond on the set of THE KID, 1920
Photo by James Abbe
Redmond was a deaf painter who kept a studio on Chaplin's lot and had bit parts in a few of his films. In The Kid he plays a friend of the father.
Redmond was a deaf painter who kept a studio on Chaplin's lot and had bit parts in a few of his films. In The Kid he plays a friend of the father.
December 9, 2014
Screenland magazine contest: Win a Christmas gift from Charlie Chaplin
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| Screenland, December 1928 |
According to the article: "Charlie's Xmas gift of the Graflex camera is a worthwhile present. There will be a silver plate on it with the winner's name inscribed thereon as presented from Charlie Chaplin." The winner, announced in the March 1929 issue, was Lucie Wiltshire of Washington, DC (there was no mention of which film she thought was Chaplin's best).
December 7, 2014
Random Excerpt
The following is Jim Tully's first-hand account of the filming of the opening scenes of The Gold Rush on Donner Summit near Truckee, CA, early 1924:
As we left the train a great shout of "He's here--he's here!" echoed over the snow-white country. It was from Chaplin's lieutenant, Edward Sutherland, and members of the company who had blazed the trail for the general. The same shout was always given when Chaplin arrived at the studio.
Summit consisted of a general store and a pine hotel perched on a mountainside. Weary of the day, we walked toward the hotel.
Boxes filled with sawdust served as spittoons in the roughly furnished lobby. A battered registry book was open on a garishly painted red desk.
We waited about it until Chaplin had written his heavy signature. We then wrote our names. Teamsters, carpenters, and other men loitered in the lobby. They gazed in awe at Chaplin. As he walked past them in a narrow hallway several men said, "Hello, Charlie!"
He answered "Hello!" cheerily.
The preparation for the trek over Chilkoot Pass had been a long and arduous task. So loyal and efficient were Chaplin's assistants that upon his arrival every detail had been carried out. He was up at five the next morning, going over plans with Eddie Sutherland, his assistant, and [Chuck] Reisner, his chief gag-man.
At seven that morning the army of hoboes arrived.
As the disheveled 500 vagabonds left the train they marched in a body to the front of the hotel and shouted, "Hurrah for Charlie!" The world's greatest screen artist listened with a wry smile.
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| Chaplin (in middle with back to the camera) with the hobo extras. Lita Grey is at left. |
Sutherland and Reisner were outdoors marshaling the army of nondescripts. The pass headquarters was three miles away, in a white basin of land surrounded by pine-covered mountains. The road was full of drifted snow.
As we emerged from the hotel with Chaplin, dressed in baggy trousers, wearing the derby and holding his cane, another mighty shout went up from the assembled vagabonds, who stood as if at attention. I hurried with Chaplin into a waiting sleigh. The horses dashed through the cold air. Chaplin held his hand to his derby, the men shouting the while, "Hey, Charlie boy!" Hurrah for Charlie--he's our kind--hurrah--hooray!" Cold, benumbed fingers lifted greasy caps and hats as the horses dashed onward by them.
"Isn't it great, Charlie--those men love and understand you--hear them cheer!" I said.
As the men marched single file after the sleigh, they resembled a long black string across a white earth. We soon lost sight of them.
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| Chaplin is in the middle between Lita Grey and Eddie Sutherland (in black hat). Jim Tully is on right (in white shirt). |
Cameras turned upon the marching men as they drew near the pass headquarters. Feeling a communion with Chaplin, like boys at a picnic, the weary trudgers enjoyed it all. Their gay and life-streaked faces showed it.
The comedian's energy was indefatigable. He hurried about giving orders through a large megaphone. Chaplin wanted to make his opening shots of this picture "the greatest ever made." Teams, wagons, sleighs, hauling supplies, came endlessly from Summit.
Within two hours the first march over Chilkoot Pass was started. One by one the men trudged through a narrow pass between two mountains, nearly two miles long. Far up, men scaled the pass. Down below, men clambered upward with lust for the gold which lay beyond.
Chaplin's original idea for "The Gold Rush" was ironical. The end finally chosen came only after many, many changes, until Charlie had what he felt he had been seeking.
The working hours passed swiftly and were generally pleasant. Chaplin's energy seemed inexhaustible.
The terrible glare of the sun on snow nearly blinded us at times. It made our skin turn red and blister and caused our eyes to burn through the night.
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| Chaplin wears sunglasses to shield his eyes from the blinding snow. |
Time after time hundreds of men walked by the camera uncomplainingly as ghosts and as heavily laden as army mules. Blankets and other paraphernalia of miners were strung across their backs. Chaplin, during this sequence, was one of the men. He would direct it until it came time for him to join the march. He would then hand his megaphone to his assistant director, Edward Sutherland, adjust his battered derby, and fall in line.
As he stepped along with the army of vagabonds, his face slowly and miraculously took on a sad and sadder expression, until, as he neared the cameras, you saw a broken explorer in a lonely moment, worn and heartsick, and trudging onward to a very uncertain destiny. He was able to interpret perfectly his companions' sufferings on his mobile face. I stood near a cameraman who had photographed the comedian for seven years [Rollie Totheroh]. He sighed as he looked at Chaplin's face and turned the camera.
Here, indeed, was the man Chaplin great. Here he made you forget all his superficialities and all his sad futilities. He was now a troubadour, two skillets rattling on his back, his derby hat near to falling off, his mouth in little puckers of agony, and his eyes too brave to cry.
You wanted to laugh at his grotesque make-up. But his face kept you from it. He looked about dismally at his companions, who staggered onwards heads down, backs hunched, as if to better bear their loads. On and on they walked, leaning forward like men going up a steep hill. These 500 hoboes--social rebels hating all established order--were now as docile as lambs.
The cameras turned in a steady, monotonous rhythm. Voices yelled to the men "Don't look at the cameras--keep goin' on--if you look up at all--look at the narrow pass--pay no attention to Charlie at all--he's just one of you--don't even look at him--it'll spoil the continuity of the action." Sutherland, the assistant, could be heard now above everything else.
"Come on, men--a little slower--you're a little more tired--it's been a long walk, you know--but you've got to go on--you've got to make the pass before night--your feet are heavy--but you're game--slow up slowly--so it isn't too perceptible on the screen."
As Chaplin reached the headquarters he looked up and beheld his leading lady [then Lita Grey]. Clad in a fur coat, beautiful in contrast to her rough surroundings, she walked straight into the derbied vagabond's heart. Words were not needed--here was a life-and beauty-starved man. It was all written on his face as he looked at the girl. But as a sore-footed soldier might look at a rose while marching to battle, he dare not stop.
Then came the villain and the mechanics of the screen. Chaplin became the tawdry hero and lost the poignancy of the situation.
At least twenty times the men marched past the cameras. Chaplin alternately watching and walking with them. At last the effect was what he thought he desired. The men rested. In an hour they did it all over again. (Tully, "The Real Life-Story of Charlie Chaplin," Pictorial Review, March 1927)
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